Pinterest en route to $578 million funding round

The web-based bulletin-board style social network Pinterest announced Monday it had raised $367 million in new capital, pushing its valuation to $11 billion. Pinterest is well over halfway to a $577.9 million capital-raising round, with the company having already secured $367 million of what is set to become its Series G round.

The online scrapbooking social network only has $210.8 million to go before completing its latest fundraising target, according to a document filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, published in March 16.

Reports as early as last month suggested that the San Francisco-based company was in the middle of a fundraising effort that would value the company at $11 billion. However, the fundraising target at the time had been thought to be around $500 million, according to Bloomberg. The new funds will help fuel global expansion plans for the fast-growing social network which calls itself a ‘visual bookmarking tool.’

On the successful completion of the latest funding round, it will more than double the $5 billion valuation that the company attained after it completed its $200 million Series F funding round last year.

Since its launch in 2009, Pinterest has raised $764 million, without including the amount it has already secured in its current funding round, which would bring the company’s total fundraising efforts to well over $1 billion, whether or not it raises the outstanding amount in the new round.

The latest funding effort will see the company close in on some of the planet’s most highly valued venture capital-backed startups, including Uber, which is valued at $41.2 billion, and Snapchat, valued at around $15 billion following reports that Alibaba Group would pump $200 million into the messaging platform.

Pinterest’s forecast $11 billion valuation is also set to see the company surpass the likes of Airbnb and Dropbox, both of which are valued at $10 billion. The statement released on Monday said the additional capital will be used for corporate purposes, including to fuel international expansion. Participants include new and previous investors.

The online bulletin-board serves more than 70 million monthly visitors, with more than 30 billion ‘pins’ uploaded by users onto the bulletin board-style platform. It has also recently started to selling advertisements in the form of ‘promoted pins.’

The release of the Pinterest’s 2014 full-year transparency report summary that was published on March 6 was followed by the capital-raising document filing. More than 36 requests for users’ data have poured in for the company from 54 accounts from US law-enforcement agencies, one request for three accounts from Canadian agencies and one request for one account from Australian law-enforcement agencies.